Connection Is Becoming a Health Imperative 

Harvard-trained social scientist Kasley Killam, in a recent episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast, argues that β€œsocial health” belongs alongside physical and mental health, with connection shaping resilience, illness, and longevity. Writing in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Isabelle Hau goes further: as AI reshapes work and daily life, the next frontier of human development may not be artificial intelligence but relational intelligence our capacity to build trust, navigate difference, create meaning, and care for one another. Michael Clinton, drawing on the Harvard Study of Adult Development in an excerpt from Longevity Nation, adds evidence that social fitness may matter as much to longevity as physical fitness. Ashoka Fellows are already building the infrastructure of connection. Marc Freedman, through CoGenerate, has highlighted more than 150 organisations using intergenerational relationships to reduce isolation and strengthen communities, while Diane Dupre la Tour, through Les Petites Cantines in France, is creating spaces where strangers become neighbours. Connection is not a nice-to-have. It is a prerequisite for healthy longevity.

 

Longevity Is Reshaping the Social Contract 

A new European study, Voices for Choices 2026, surveying 2,000 young adults across six countries, finds growing concern that the foundations of adulthoodβ€”secure housing, affordable healthcare, meaningful work, lifelong learning, and reliable pensions are becoming harder to access. The findings suggest that ageing is no longer viewed solely through the lens of older populations. It is increasingly shaping how younger generations think about opportunity, security, and their trust in public institutions. As societies age, the future of longevity may depend as much on intergenerational fairness as it does on healthcare or pensions.

In The Guardian, journalist John Kampfner points to Japan and Taiwan as examples of societies that invested in prevention, community support, long-term care, and social participation long before demographic change became a crisis. Their experience suggests that adapting to longevity is less about finding a single policy solution and more about sustained investment over decades. What stands out is a mindset: longer lives are treated as a reality to prepare for rather than a problem to solve. Read more.

A new study by FGV EAESP and Instituto ItaΓΊ Viver Mais highlights the scale of Brazil's demographic transition. The country's 60+ population now exceeds 32 million people and accounts for roughly a quarter of household income. The report argues that population ageing is not simply a demographic trend but a profound economic shift that will influence labour markets, financial services, healthcare, housing, and consumption patterns. The opportunity is not only to support older populations, but to redesign economies and institutions for a society where longer lives become the norm. Learn more.

This transition is also beginning to reshape where innovation happens. An article in Times Brasil reviewing AgeTech startups across Brazil, Germany, and the United States points to a growing concentration of innovation in health and care solutions, while areas such as purpose, social connection, financial resilience, housing, and lifelong participation remain comparatively underexplored. In her contribution to the debate, Marilia Duque, co-lead of Ashoka New Longevity Brazil, argues that as longer lives become the norm, the next frontier may be less about managing decline and more about expanding opportunities for people to contribute, connect, learn, and thrive. Read more. 

  1. Lifelong Contribution Matters More Than Ever

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The OECD and AARP have launched a Longevity Readiness Tool to help employers assess how prepared they are for longer working lives. Covering recruitment, training, job quality, and health and safety, the framework reflects a growing recognition that workplaces must adapt to longer careers, multigenerational teams, and more fluid life transitions. Ashoka Fellows have been advancing this shift for years: Riccarda Zezza, through Lifeed (Italy), has shown how caregiving and life transitions build valuable workplace skills; SΓ©rgio SerapiΓ£o (Brazil) is redesigning lifelong learning pathways for flexible forms of work based on skill portfolios; and Gabriela Agustini, through Transborda 60+ (Brazil), is expanding digital participation across longer lives. Longevity is no longer a workforce issue at the margins. It is becoming a question of how organizations attract, develop, and retain talent over longer careers.

 

A recent Fortune article highlights an often-overlooked dimension of this transition: cognitive health. Drawing on new research, the piece suggests that leaving the workforce earlier than expected may accelerate cognitive decline, while continued engagement is associated with stronger cognitive function over time. What appears to matter is not employment itself, but the stimulation, learning, social connection, purpose, and sense of contribution that meaningful engagement provides. The implication reaches far beyond retirement. As lives lengthen, the opportunity is not simply to extend careers, but to create more pathways for people to contribute through work, volunteering, caregiving, mentoring, entrepreneurship, and changemaking throughout life. Read more.

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β€œA human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species.” – Carl Jung

 

Fellows in action 

Ashoka Fellow Christian Ntizimira (Rwanda) is reimagining care through an African lens. In a recent interview with CancerWorld, the founder of the African Center for Research on End-of-Life Care (ACREOL) argues that illness and dying are not individual experiences, but family and community experiences. Through his Safari Concept and the philosophy of Ubuntu, he is helping build culturally grounded models of care that place dignity, connection, and human presence at their core. As societies grapple with rising care needs, his work challenges a common assumption: that better care is only about better medicine. Sometimes it is about ensuring no one faces suffering alone. 

Ashoka Fellow Carlo Petrini (Italy), founder of the Slow Food movement, passed away this month at the age of 76. Petrini spent four decades challenging the assumption that faster is always better, championing local food, shared meals, biodiversity, and community as essential parts of a good life. Long before longevity became a mainstream conversation, he was defending many of the conditions that research now associates with healthier and longer lives strong social ties, intergenerational connection, cultural belonging, and time spent together. As the BBC reflected on his legacy, Petrini's enduring contribution may be a simple but profound reminder: well-being is not built only through healthcare and technology. Sometimes it is built slowly, around a table.   

Your Turn

Ashoka Brazil, through the Lab Nova Longevidade, has launched the new edition of the Mapping of the Social Innovation Ecosystem in Longevity in Brazil, an open call designed to identify, connect, and amplify initiatives transforming how the country responds to longer lives. Developed in partnership with Instituto Beja, RD SaΓΊde and ItaΓΊ Viver Mais, the mapping brings together organizations, entrepreneurs, researchers, collectives, startups, and changemakers working across areas such as health, care, work, education, housing, culture, digital inclusion, and intergenerational connection. Beyond generating knowledge about the field, the initiative seeks to strengthen collaboration, visibility, and network activation around the future of longevity in Brazil. Interested in joining the ecosystem and contributing to this collective movement? Learn more and apply now.

Ashoka Colombia is convening innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and changemakers for the Month of Innovation for New Longevity this July. Through virtual and in-person events across BogotΓ‘, Manizales, and MedellΓ­n, participants will explore some of the most promising innovations transforming health, care, lifelong contribution, intergenerational connection, and ageing. Interested in connecting with the people and ideas shaping the future of longevity? Learn more and join the conversation. Register now

In 2026, we aim to support 10 new Ashoka Fellows advancing longevity by raising $1 million. Your contribution will help identify, elect, and scale these leaders, ensuring longer lives become better lives. Donate

Ashoka is actively seeking exceptional social innovators driving systems change in New Longevity across healthy living, lifelong contribution, caregiving, intergenerational connection, and narrative change. These changemakers are reshaping how we live and age. Do you know someone transforming the future of longevity? Nominate an Ashoka Fellow today!